178 Responses

Oh, and notwithstanding a bitchy tweet from Chris Finlayson (for goodness sake, Minister, do us all a favour and go and do some work), I'm please to see the Arts, Culture and Heritage portfolio given continued prominence. Basically, Grant Robertson and his former Associate Jacinda Ardern have swapped places. I think that's a branding portfolio for Labour.

It's a pity Science is no longer on the front bench. Can't say I'm a huge fan of calling science "innovation" and burying it in MBIE, but given the business focus of MBIE then Megan Woods is probably an appropriate choice.

I know nothing about Moana Mackey the spokesperson for science and she may get a bigger role in the next govt but it feels very much like Labour (still) doesn't believe science is of any value to society.

I know IT is a big focus of folks here but IT only exists because scientists created it for our own needs.

Yup she was a scientist before she moved into politics so that's a plus.

Oddly given some of the policy coming out of the The Greens I wouldn't be too upset to see Science go to a Green MP ....except of course for the couple of odd areas where they seem to utterly abandon science for ideology :(. Sadly those few areas are enough to prevent me supporting them.

But on the whole much of The Green policy is based in science which suggests they have some folks who actually understand and could represent Science as a portfolio ... as opposed to National and Labour who have spent the last few decades treating science as some kind of badly performing manufacturing company.

And yes it hurts my head to think that The Greens could better represent Science in/for NZ than any other Party.

Transport is a slam dunk given the expertise The Greens can bring to bear ... actually having someone who knows what the hell they are talking about lead a portfolio!

Conservation is also an obvious match for The Greens.

But Health? Bearing in mind The Greens still publically believe in fake medicines, it would be a huge call to give one of the biggest and most important (to voters) portfolios to a party that has ... er ... interesting veiws on what counts as health care.

As a past Dunedinite, I'm not sorry to see Curran go from ICT. Too much shooting from the lip before brain engagement. Rest of the shadow cabinet looks good although I would like to see Louisa Wall given a major portfolio

Yeah, I find most of what he says to be reasonable and sensible. It's the policy that I'd like to see change to match much of their other science and evidence based policy.

And I suspect I'm not alone in wanting to see them push stronger into being the party based firmly is the real rather than the ideaology. If they did that I think they'd be a really great compliment to Labour.

Phil Twyford, being given Housing, Auckland Issues, and Associate Environment (Cities), leads me to wonder that his role will effectively be Spokeperson for Urban Affairs and Land Use in all but name. Which I think should be a really important role, given the amount of public spending in the area, sub-standard housing stock, and misguided attention to rural motorways rather than public transport, walking, and cycling - things which make our cities nice place to be in.

Hopefully this also recognises that cities are part of the environment, and need to be tended to and cultivated in their own manner.